The Sum of All Fears

“Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You.” Psalm 38:9

Desire – Has God turned His back on your desires?  We have been emotionally conditioned to believe that God only looks on the “high and moral” desires of men and women.  We wouldn’t dare come into God’s presence carrying immoral or selfish desires.  After all, God won’t have anything to do with bad things.

If you have ever experienced the guilt of coming to God with a heart full of selfish desires, you know the humiliation that some church circles would lay on you.  We are supposed to come into His presence with praise and thanksgiving, not with greed and lust and anger.  Who says?  Not David.

David says that all of his desire is before the Lord.  The word is ta’awa.  It’s used for both good and bad wishes.  Lust.  Greed.  Pleasure.  The motivation for righteousness and the motivation for selfish fulfillment.  Humble obedience and foolish rebellion.  Did you expect David to say anything less?  Was David going to cover up his sexual desire for Bathsheba or his murderous desire to get rid of Uriah?  Was David going to hide his pride in power when he ordered the census?  Was he only going to bring God the twenty-third psalm?

David was a great king, but he wasn’t a nice man.  He wasn’t even a moral man.  But he was a man who sought God.  He was as real about himself as it gets.  “Lord, I stand before you naked.  You see all of my desire.  The whole range of ta’awa.  You know everything that I have wanted and everything I still want.  There’s no use pretending with You.  It’s pointless to try to convince you that I don’t want these sinful things.  I do.  There’s a part of me that wants it all.  There’s a part of me that wants to play god for myself.  But, Lord, the truth is that this part of me makes me sick.  The truth is that this part of me is the sum of all my fears.  It’s powerful, Lord.  It wants to overwhelm me, and it will if I don’t have Your help.  I won’t pretend with You.  You know my agony.  Help me, Lord.  Substitute your desire in me for my desire because, Lord, I want to serve You.”

Paul must have read this psalm dozens of times.  “For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish” (Romans 7:19).  “Wretched man that I am!  Who will set me free from this body of death?”  (Romans 7:24)  It is the psalm of the fearless moral inventory.

Forget the “goodness” mythology.  Bring God the sum of all your fears.  Get in line with David and Paul.  Jesus didn’t die for good men.  He died for all my ta’awa.